NEW YORK (Herald de Paris) — Ours is the blue planet. ¬†Not the green planet, not the orange clay planet, and certainly not the brown dirt planet. ¬†Ours is blue. ¬†Earth’s oceans cover 71% of its surface and are responsible not just for the origins of life as we know it, but for the weather systems which allow life to thrive on land, as well. ¬†Yet, 95% of our oceans remain unexplored.

I have a problem with that, and so should you.

Mother earth as we know her is the offspring of grandmother ocean, and thus, the old girl holds knowledge, secrets, and a few surprises in her deepest recesses. ¬†As land dwellers, we treat la grand mer like a forgotten relic in a rest home, instead of learning as much as we possibly can from her.

What can we learn from our oceans? ¬†About out own humanity, and how to fight disease, end hunger, and live in harmony. ¬†The percentage of salt in our bodies, as President Kennedy once said, is exactly the same percentage of salt in our oceans, and as such, we are part of the oceans and the oceans are a part of us all.

Right now, our oceans are in trouble. ¬†Changes, no matter what you call them, are altering the chemical composition of our oceans at a rate never before recorded. ¬†This acidification is destroying a delicately balanced system that grandmother ocean took millennia to perfect. ¬†The basic premise should not be undermined – no matter how arrogant man is, if our oceans die – so do we.

But it isn’t only about us. ¬†The human population has a terrible history of fishing species to extinction without bothering to consider its effects on the whole food chain. ¬†We incarcerate two of our most intelligent mammalian cousins, the dolphin and the orca, for our entertainment, then condemn them for standing up for their emancipation. ¬†We must somehow stop the contradictory practice of using our most valuable commodity as both a refuse dumping ground and as an endless source of nutrition, for it is neither.

Do not be mistaken, for mother earth and grandmother ocean will outlive our entire species, and if we do not figure out how to learn from them, they will eradicate us from their sphere and move on.

Forget Mars. ¬†We have no right to explore the red planet until we explore the blue one. ¬†We live here, but we may not always.